/ The Velvet Underground

Rhino Records has quite the cure for the usual January doldrums that hit the release calendar, announcing more than a dozen new and reissued titles available exclusively through participating physical stores.
The "Start Your Ear Off Right" initiative, featuring titles available January 19, encompass some of the best-known names in Rhino's back catalogue, including The Grateful Dead, The Monkees, Devo, The Cars and The Replacements. From colored vinyl variants to CD box sets, there's virtually

Was 1966 the greatest year ever in popular music? The case could certainly be made for its significance - and Jon Savage has done just that in his new book 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded. Savage's book looks at the events and culture of the year in twelve essays, each one built around one 45 RPM record. Naturally, such a book deserves a soundtrack, and Ace Records has seen to it that it receives one with the companion volume of the same name. Jon Savage's 1966: The Year the Decade

Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up which continues this autumn's tradition of having each week packed with box sets from heavy hitters - in this case, The Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground, The Who, Queen, Grateful Dead, Frank Sinatra, and they're still not all! Plus: CD and vinyl reissues, anthologies, and much more!
The Beach Boys, Beach Boys' Party: Uncovered and Unplugged (Capitol) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)
The first disc of this 2-CD, 81-track set features the

Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Packed with over 30 titles including highly-anticipated reissues, a slew of box sets, collections and more, it just may be the mightiest of the year!
The Velvet Underground, Loaded: Re-Loaded 45th Anniversary Edition (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)
The Velvet Underground's 1970 album - and Lou Reed's swansong with the band - gets the deluxe expanded treatment from Rhino in this new box set featuring the original stereo and mono

Rhino has a fully loaded slate for this fall...make that a fully Loaded slate. On October 30, the same date as the recently-announced 20th anniversary edition of Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill, the label will give the deluxe treatment to The Velvet Underground's fourth studio album. Loaded: Re-Loaded 45th Anniversary Edition will follow in the footsteps and format of the deluxe sets previously released by UMe for the VU's first three albums The Velvet Underground and Nico, White

Simon and Garfunkel, The Complete Albums Collection (Columbia/Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)
This 12-CD box includes all five of Simon & Garfunkel's stereo studio albums released between 1964 and 1970, newly remastered from first-generation analog sources plus first-time remasters of The Graduate soundtrack and 1981's The Concert in Central Park; 1972's Greatest Hits album (which contained some unique performances unavailable elsewhere); and the live concert albums from 1967, 1969

Our Black Friday Record Store Day shopping list has just gotten a little longer! Following our recent announcement of Legacy Recordings’ slate for November 28, we have news of the offerings coming your way from Omnivore Recordings, Rhino and Varese Sarabande!
For the gang at Omnivore, it’s all about amazing indie pop! The label recently reissued Game Theory’s debut album Blaze of Glory, and on November 24, the Omnivores will unveil the first U.S. release of the band’s compilation Dead Center.

For the third year in a row, a classic album by The Velvet Underground will receive the super deluxe treatment from Polydor and Universal Music Enterprises (UMe).
On November 24, 2014, the label will release The Velvet Underground – 45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition, a 65-track, 6-CD hardcover book-style box set, following 2012’s release of The Velvet Underground and Nico and 2013’s White Light/White Heat. The 1969 release of The Velvet Underground introduced Doug Yule to the band,

David Bowie did the unthinkable in this media-obsessed age when, on the date of his sixty-sixth birthday (January 8, 2013), he managed to catch the world off-guard to announce his first new album in a decade. Bowie and his cohorts had kept The Next Day a secret, proving that the iconoclastic artist could still do things his way. In six decades, from the 1960s through the present, David Bowie has kept his fans guessing what might come next. And while Bowie's sound is one of the most

With April 19's Record Store Day a little more than a week away, it might be time to start making those checklists! We've already filled you in on exciting releases from Legacy Recordings, Real Gone Music, Sundazed, Omnivore Recordings, Varese Sarabande and many others, but today it's all about Rhino! The Warner Music Group catalogue arm has a bumper crop of more than 25 exclusive offerings from some of the biggest names classic rock, vintage R&B and beyond - including The Doors, Grateful

Eric Clapton, Give Me Strength: The '74/'75 Recordings (Polydor/UMe)
One of Clapton's most prolific periods is revisited with this six-disc box, featuring expanded versions of 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974), There's One in Every Crowd (1975), a remixed and expanded double-disc version of live album E.C. Was Here (1975), a disc of sessions at Criteria Studios with blues legend Freddie King and a Blu-Ray featuring new 5.1 surround and original quadrophonic mixes. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)
Ella

UPDATED 10/4: "No one listened to it. But there it is, forever - the quintessence of articulate punk. And no one goes near it." So commented the rather articulate Lou Reed in a statement for Rolling Stone regarding Universal's upcoming 45th anniversary 3-CD box set of The Velvet Underground's sophomore effort, White Light/White Heat. Due on December 3, the new set follows last year's 6-CD super deluxe edition of the band's debut Velvet Underground & Nico from Universal as well as the

Though CBGB closed its doors at 315 Bowery on October 15, 2006 following a concert by Patti Smith, the legendary New York club never truly disappeared. Though plans to open a new location in Las Vegas fell through - some might say, mercifully! - Hilly Krystal's famous club has survived in spirit. CBGB Radio launched in 2010, the CBGB Festival of music hit the Big Apple in 2012, and the original awning even migrated to Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This October, CBGB gets another

Wow! Was it just over a year ago when a rather dubious report began circulating (that, shockingly, was picked up by many otherwise-reputable publications) that proclaimed the death of the CD was secretly scheduled by the major labels for 2012? Well, 2012 has come and (almost) gone, and it might have been the most super-sized year in recent memory for reissues, deluxe and otherwise, from labels new and old. Here at the Second Disc, we consider our annual Gold Bonus Disc Awards a companion

Here in the U. S. of A., Black Friday is almost upon us: that unusual date following the prior day of giving thanks, in which consumers make a mad dash to the local big-box store, mall or shopping center to procure bargains for the holiday season ahead. Retailers are controversially beginning Black Friday “festivities” even earlier than usual this year, with many sales starting on Thanksgiving Day itself and not even at midnight but in the early part of the evening. For a number of recent

The Velvet Underground is going back to mono, thanks to the Sundazed label. On October 30, the seminal underground rock band’s first three albums will get the deluxe box set treatment in their original mono versions. But that’s not all. The Verve/MGM Albums will also include the mono version of Nico’s 1967 solo debut Chelsea Girl (featuring the Velvets’ Lou Reed, John Cale and Sterling Morrison) as well as what the label is billing as “the definitive version of the band’s unfinished fourth

Are there somehow not enough super deluxe box sets in the pipeline for you? Universal added another to the pile today: a 45th anniversary deluxe edition of The Velvet Underground & Nico.
The iconic, Andy Warhol-produced LP, released to almost no fanfare in 1967 but today recognized as a classic example of art-rock, is no stranger to CD reissues. Two different remasters appeared in stores in 1986 and 1996, and the album (along with various bonus material) appeared in the career-spanning 1995

Catalysis (ca-tal-y-sis): The action of a catalyst, especially an increase in the rate of a chemical reaction.
With his induction into Ace Records’ Producers series, John Cale joins an esteemed group including Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Sly Stone, Phil Spector and Burt Bacharach. If Cale isn’t always thought of in the same breath as those giants, it’s simply because his career has been so diverse, encompassing writing, performing and arranging for artists ranging from The Stooges to

If you've got guitars on the mind, look no further than a pair of new releases from those compilation experts at the Ace label! Fender: The Golden Age 1950-1970 (Ace CDCHD 1315) is a new 28-track anthology that manages to be both comprehensive and the tip of the iceberg, where the famous guitar is concerned! A new companion to the 2010 book of almost the same name (Fender: The Golden Age 1946-1970 by Martin Kelly), this set offers a rare chance to appreciate both the talent on the record label

She may have been a self-described “schlep from Levittown,” but Maureen “Moe” Tucker of The Velvet Underground always beat to the sound of her own drum. Tucker shed her suburban roots when she joined with Lou Reed, John Cale and Sterling Morrison in The Velvet Underground, replacing drummer Angus MacLise. (His tenure was a brief few months.) It’s fair to say that The Velvets changed the sound of rock and roll forever, breaking long-held lyrical taboos and musically drawing from both

And the Top 15 of our 100 Greatest Reissues list begins! We've taken Rolling Stone‘s list of the greatest albums of all time and investigated their many pressings and expansions over the years. Today, we're rocking in the 1960s, take a jazz detour to 1959, and remember a 1976 compilation of material circa 1955!
15. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced (Reprise, 1967)
If you weren’t experienced before listening to the 1967 debut of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, it’s safe to say

Ramones, Ramones / Leave Home / Rocket to Russia / Road to Ruin (Rhino)
180-gram vinyl reissues of the first four Ramones records! The first 500 to buy them from Rhino directly (as seen in this post) get replica 45s with each album, too. (Official site)
Andrew Wood, Malfunkshun: The Andrew Wood Story (Hip-o Select/A&M)
A late, underrated icon in the early days of grunge gets his due with this triple-disc set, featuring the acclaimed DVD documentary of his life and career (which gives the

You know, it took some time, but Universal's ICON series is really coming into its own. What began as a limply-packaged, uber-budget-oriented series of single-artist compilations - not a patch on the label's previous 20th Century Masters and Gold series - is really emerging into something unique. It's just a shame it took this many tries to work out the kinks.
Ha ha ha! Who am I kidding? The newest batch of ICON titles, due for release next Tuesday, July 19, is boring. You have a compilation by

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